Kabila, Joseph

Encyclopedia of World Biography
COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc.

Joseph Kabila

Joseph Kabila (born 1971) became the president of the Congo in 2001 when he was only 29 years old. He was put into the position after his father, Laurent Kabila, president at the time, was assassinated. Striving to end the atrocities that had taken place in his country to that point, Kabila worked to make treaties with Congo's neighbors and fought to remove foreign forces from his lands. In 2006 Kabila won a democratic election to win the presidency.

Mysterious Beginnings

Kabila was born around June 4, 1971, in Ankoro—a small town on the banks of the Congo River—in North Katanga, in the Congo, although his birth year has been given as anywhere from 1968 to 1972, and there has been some debate as to the location. There are also some reports that instead he was born December 4, 1971, at Hewa Bora, Kabila's father's guerrilla headquarters in the Fizi territory of South-Kivu. He was the oldest of 10 children. His father, Laurent Kabila, is said to have been involved in politics early on, although there have been some rumors that he was an ivory and diamond trafficker. Kabila had a twin sister, Jane, and one full blood brother, Saide. His mother was one of Laurent Kabila's three wives, Sifa Maanya. She was a member of the Bangubangu tribe in the Maniema province of eastern Congo, although some have claimed that she was a Tutsi from Rwanda. Whatever the case, Kabila went to school in Tanzania, attending schools based on the British school system where Kabila learned to speak English at a young age. He was also fluent in Swahili, although not in Lingala, which is the language spoken in Congo's capital. While at school he also studied French. After school he trained in the Rwandan military for three years before he went on to continue his education. He went to Makarere University in 1995.

Before he could begin taking classes in 1996, Kabila's father, head at that time of a guerilla force that opposed the government, asked him to join him in a fight to overthrow then-president Mobutu Sese Seko. Kabila's father sent him to China to further his military training, and six months later they led the revolt that overthrew the Congolese government and put Laurent Kabila into the office of president. Kabila's father appointed him to the position of major-general and he was put in charge of the armed forces. When taking over the presidency Kabila's father promised that he would change the corruption and bad politics that had plagued the government for the past 40 years. Unfortunately, his rule was just as corrupt.

Made President of the Congo

In 1998, still in charge of the armed forces, Kabila led a fight against Rwanda and Uganda, both of whom had invaded the Congo and had control over portions of it. The operation was still underway when Kabila returned home. At this time Kabila lived in a military housing unit with his girlfriend, Olive, and their daughter, Josephine, but this life was not to last. Kabila's father was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards, Rashisi Kassereka, in 2001. Kassereka was shot dead on the spot after the murder. After Kabila's father died, Kabila's mother continued to live at the palace, away from the public eye. And Kabila himself became the next president of the Congo at the young age of 29 years old.

After his father was murdered, Kabila met with foreign diplomats and representatives from different Congolese groups from the religious, social, and commercial sectors. It was not really known how Kabila succeeded his father as president, but most believe it was because he was the least controversial choice at the time, not really belonging to any of the factions that were vying for power across the country. Whatever the case, three days after Kimbala took over control of the country troops were sent from Angola, Zimbabwe, and Namibia after their leaders had met together, to help secure Kabila his office and keep the peace around the country. Kabila's father's Parliament unanimously voted Kabila into office on January 27, 2001, only 11 days after Kabila's father was murdered. It made him the youngest leader of any country in the world at that time.

Ascension Caused Suspicions

Nobody knew what kind of leader Kabila would be. In his personal life, Kabila neither drank nor smoked. He did not eat at fancy restaurants or like expensive clothing. He was shy and quiet and apparently down to earth and serious. He was a Christian who often read the Bible. He liked sports and computer games. He was young, so many assumed he would be weak. Many assumed he would be a dictator as his father had been. Some were suspicious of the way he had come to power, and some reports claimed that Kabila had been put into office as a puppet for a hidden regime. Kabila had much to face at the beginning of his tour as president of the Congo.

The whole country watched to see what Kabila would do first as he entered his reign as president. Kabila, however, would have none of it. The important thing, he said, was not what he did, but how the country fared.

Began Touring World as President

Only a week after he was sworn in as president, George Bush invited Kabila to visit Washington. Kabila accepted the invitation and went there to meet with Colin Powell and Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda. Kabila discussed with the pair the fact that he wanted peace for his country. There had been much fighting between the Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda in the past and Kabila wanted it stopped.

For the next three months of his presidency Kabila reorganized the government. He got rid of anyone too extreme and retired anyone who had been in the parliament so long that Kabila felt that they assumed that their positions were secure and therefore they did not really need to do anything anymore. He wanted only honest, hard-working people in his administration. He made promises to turn Congo's government into a democracy and to improve the economy. According to the AFROL website, Kabila said, "At the moment the social conditions here are catastrophic. The humanitarian situation is also catastrophic. It's these issues that require our attention and resources."

Democratic Elections Held in the Congo

In 2003 Kabila ended the war that had started when his father fought with their neighbors Rwanda and Uganda. Since then they had been occupying parts of the eastern Congo. It has been estimated that over four million people were killed in the conflict, but due mainly to Kabila's diplomatic skills and his meetings with officials of the other countries, there was an end to the killing.

On June 16, 2006, Kabila married his girlfriend, Olive Lembe. Later that year elections were held to elect a president in a fair, democratic election. The two main candidates were Kabila and Jean Pierre Bemba, a well-educated millionaire businessman. He had also led one of the militia groups that fought on the border of Uganda, Rwanda, and the Congo during the war that Kabila ended in 2003. His group had been accused of numerous horrible acts such as killing and raping. Because of this Kabila declared that he could not see the country go to Bemba.

One of the problems that Kimbala faced during elections was the fact that he did not speak Lingala, the main language spoken in Kinshasa, the capital of the Congo. For that reason he was seen as an outsider there. The eastern Congo, on the other hand, favored him because he had stopped the war that raged in that part of the country. On the contrary Bemba did speak the language. Kimbala, for this reason, needed help to gain support form western Congo if he was going to win the election. His need for help was so great, in fact, that he went so far as to ask for help campaigning from the son of the dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, that Kabila's father threw out of office years before. He made a deal with Francois Joseph Mobutu Nzanga for help gain votes from the west where Nzanga is from.

Results Tallied from Election

When the votes were tallied on October 29, 2006, Kabila had won 58.05 per cent of the vote to Bemba's 41.95 per cent. London's Independent reported on the election results, quoting Jacqueline Chenard, the UN spokeswoman in Goma, North Kivu. "People are very cheerful. There is a lot of marching and chanting—it is a good atmosphere. People are happy that the Congo now has a president that has been elected by them, the people, for the first time in their lives." As was predicted, a great majority of the people who supported Kabila came from the east where they speak Kabila's native Swahili.

At the beginning of 2007 the Congo had only 300 miles of paved roads, something that needed to be rectified if it was to become a successfully commercial country. There was very little in the way of an infrastructure; there were barely any schools to be had and hospitals were overcrowded, dirty, and under-provisioned. There were also several militia groups still in existence, constantly threatening Congo's peace. If that were not enough, Bemba protested the election results, claiming that Kabila faked votes and miscounted in territories where Bemba was the chosen president. Only two weeks after elections the country was on the brink of war yet again.

Bemba had support from most of Congo's capital city as well as from the Catholic Church. In the Congo church leaders are quite often more successful at influencing their parishioners than politicians are at doing so with their countrymen. The archbishop in Congo urged the people of Congo to reject what he called a fraud. To prevent a civil war, the UN sent members on missions to negotiate an agreement between the two men. One solution suggested Bemba be in charge of the Senate while Kimbala remained president, but Bemba's side refused such a thing. As stated in the Christian Science Monitor, "'This is Africa, it's all or nothing,' says one African observer, working for an African embassy in Kinshasa. 'First place is the presidency. Second place is the grave.'" At the beginning of 2007 it was still not clear what would happen in the Congo or how Kabila would handle it. But many believe he will pull the country out of this problem, too.

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Joseph Kabila 1968(?)–

After three decades of corrupt government and three years of civil and foreign war, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), or Congo, was in dire need of peace. DRC’s president, Laurent Kabila, spoke of peace, but was unable—or unwilling—to forge it. After Kabila was murdered in January of 2001, his son, Joseph Kabila, was named president. Reluctant to be president, Joseph Kabila had no political experience and little military experience. The Congolese knew little about him and feared he would be as difficult and corrupt as his father. But Joseph Kabila used the first months of his presidency to restructure DRC government and to visit with heads of Europe and the United States, promoting his willingness to work for peace in Congo.

Kabila’s early life is hazy. He was born either in eastern Congo, where his father headed a Marxist and Pan-Africanist political party, or in Tanzania, where his father was a reputed ivory and diamond trafficker. The year of his birth is also in question: some reports say 1968, while others say 1972. Joseph was Laurent Kabila’s eldest son with one of his three wives, Mrs. Sifa Maanya. There is some controversy about Maan-ya’s origins: though the DRC government maintains she was from the Bango-Bango tribe, there were rumors that she was a Rwandan Tutsi. After her husband’s death, Maanya continued to reside in the official palace but she never spoke publicly. Joseph Kabila had a twin sister, Jane, and one blood brother, Saide. He attended primary and secondary school in Tanzania and received his basic military training in Rwanda in 1995.

The DRC is the third-largest African nation—about the size of Western Europe—and is known for its natural resources one of the richest lands in the world. The country abounds with diamonds, copper, uranium, oil, timber, and coffee. Decades of corrupt government weakened the country’s infrastructure. Taking advantage, six of DRC’s neighboring countries—Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Angola—and several rebel groups put military troops on DRC soil, fighting for a piece of the wealth, and in the process ravaging the country. In the confusion, many Congolese became impoverished. Food and gas prices skyrocketed. The inflation rate was the highest in the world, at 500 percent. The food markets in the nation’s capital, Kinshasa, were half empty. Orphans and the destitute roamed the streets, and some families ate whatever they could find—cooked cow skin, bats, caterpillars.

Born Joseph Kabila in either Tanzania or in eastern Congo, between 1968 and 1972; children: Josephine. Education: Received basic military training in Rwanda, 1995; attended university in Uganda, 1996. Military: trained in China, 1997. Religion: Christian.

Career: Major-general in DRC army and army chief of staff, 1997-2001; president of Democratic Republic of Congo, 2001-.

As he was preparing to begin university in Uganda in 1996, Joseph Kabila was called back by his father to help him overthrow DRC’s dictatorship of then-President Mobutu Sese Seko. Kabila’s rebel takeover of DRC was made with promises of change for the nation, but his reign turned out to be just as corrupt as Seko’s. Joseph Kabila then went to China for more military training and returned in 1997, when he was promoted to the rank of major-general and his father named him chief of the armed forces.

On January 16, 2001, Laurent Kabila was murdered in his palace by a guard. Though conspiracy theories abounded—many believe the Angolans were responsible—the official position was that the assassination was personal. Soon after the murder, the DRC’s top military and political advisors sat down to choose his replacement. “Joseph was the best man, as he is accepted by all sides,” DRC Justice Minister Mwenze Kongolo told the Christian Science Monitor. The general belief was that Joseph would be more interested in resolving the war than his hard-line father was.

In the days before he became president, Kabila moved from the modest military villa, where he lived with his girlfriend Olive and their young daughter Josephine, to live in the official palaces. He spent the days after his father’s murder in private meetings with foreign diplomats and representatives of various Congolese religious, social, and commercial groups. January 27, 2001—eleven days after his father’s death—Kabila became president of DRC and the youngest head of state in the world.

The Congolese did not know what to expect from their new president. They did not know if he was strong enough to hold the country together or whether he would pursue war or peace. Many were unhappy with the way he had come to power. Many Congolese objected to the fact that he was chosen secretly and automatically. Congolese government sources and Western diplomats said that Kabila did not want to become president, only that he did so at the insistence of his father’s Cabinet ministers. Others disapproved of the choice because they were unhappy with his father. Many believed the son was easily influenced and a puppet to his father’s advisors.

The people of DRC were not confident that Kabila was capable of being president, and there was immense pressure on him to move quickly. He had no political experience and little military experience. Though fluent in English and Swahili, Kabila was not fluent in French, the official language of DRC, or Lingala, the tribal language spoken by most Congolese.

Kabila did not smoke, drink, like to dine out, or dress lavishly. He was by all accounts a shy, down-to-earth man who had few good friends. He read the Bible and likes sports and playing computer games.

The new president spent his first three months in office “cleaning house.” He removed extremists and ineffective old-timers. He restructured the government and promised to “democratize the political process and liberalize the economy,” according to the Christian Science Monitor.“We are trying to change a whole system of misery, give the Congolese people breathing space, and start with programs of recovery,” he was quoted as saying in the same article. Many worried that his promises needed to be fulfilled quickly for the Congolese to be satisfied. “I always back my words with action,” Kabila responded in the Christian Science Monitor.“When I promise something I have to do it. That is what dignity is all about.”

Kabila’s first goal was peace. He traveled to the United States, France, Belgium, the Nordic countries, and Britain, to talk with heads of state, and push his message of peace. He reopened talks with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. He appeared willing to cooperate with the United Nations in following the Lusaka accord, which outlined a withdrawal of foreign armies from Congo and an end to Congo’s war, and which his father had reluctantly signed in 1999 but made no attempt to implement.

Three months into his presidency, the Economist reported that, despite the positive steps Kabila appeared to have taken, he lacked “legitimacy and power” and “the authority and the political skill” to keep DRC together. By May of 2001, however, the Economist reported that Kabila had “been more flexible, thus winning the authority and status his father lacked…. [Compared to his father, he was] cleverer and more statesmanlike.”

Kabila felt progress was being made. He allowed UN monitors and guards to enter the country to help facilitate peace and the withdrawal of military troops. “As far as I’m concerned,” he told the Christian Science Monitor,“the peace process is on track.” David Meyer, chief of staff for the UN observer force in the DRC agreed. “It is going pretty well,” he said in the Christian Science Monitor,“broadly speaking we are on track and we are pleased.”

Kabila won allies in the West by agreeing to economic reform. He believed that, within a year’s time, the DRC would have a different look, a different feel—that the fuel problems would be solved, roads would be built. “There are plans, there are visions, there are expectations,” he told the Christian Science Monitor.

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Kabila, Joseph

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.

Copyright The Columbia University Press

Joseph Kabila (käbē´lä), 1971–, Congolese political leader, eldest son of Laurent Kabila. He was educated in Tanzania while his father was in exile there, and after the father became president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he received military training in Rwanda and China. Returning home (1998), he was appointed general, named head of Congo's armed forces, and became president (2001) after his father's murder. He quickly reinstated political parties and promised democratic and economic reforms, and made a series of efforts to end the raging civil war. In 2002 Kabila signed a peace agreement with the rebels, but fighting continued. In 2003 UN forces arrived to restore order, and a transitional national unity government led by Kabila took office. After he survived two coup attempts (2004), a new constitution was finally approved (2005) and presidential elections were held (2006). Kabila handily defeated rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo in a runoff election. In 2011 he was declared reelected after a vote marred by irregularities and fraud.

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